Mr. Ayoob,
Once again I draw on your vast knowledge and expertise, and hope you can shed some light on a subject that was brought up in a recent range session at our Dept. range.
Much has been written about night sights, low profile sights, etc etc, .

What have you found to be the general consensus concerning the use of sights in a self defense situation? What I mean is, we were once told that if you have time to use your sights (instead of just pointing and instinct shooting), you probably aren't in "immediate danger". Whereas if you are confronted with a situation where deadly force is needed to stop a threat you won't be using the sights, and you will probably react and fire without even thinking about it. I might not be phrasing things correctly, but I think you get the meaning of my question.
I understand in a Tactical Situation, a Counter-Sniper will be using precision fire to stop a threat, and therefore sighting through a optical device is necessary. But in most street situations, is it acceptable to "use your sights" to eliminate a threat? Would this change in a civilian SD situation?

La26

Mas Ayoob

04-26-2011, 05:48

[QUOTE=La26;17269886
What have you found to be the general consensus concerning the use of sights in a self defense situation? What I mean is, we were once told that if you have time to use your sights (instead of just pointing and instinct shooting), you probably aren't in "immediate danger".

La26[/QUOTE]

Whoever told you that probably didn't realize how quickly a trained shooter can get sights on target.

"Using the sights" doesn't necessarily mean taking the marksman's perfect post-in-notch sight picture and slo-o-owly squeezing the trigger. In close, it can be as simple as simply seeing the gun superimposed over the target: "Metal on Meat" in the current parlance. Seeing only the front sight on the chest can be remarkably effective.

NYPD's SOP-9 studies over the years have shown that officers who see the sights have a distinctly higher hit potential than those who don't. Bill Allard, who shot more armed criminals in gunfights than any other member of the NYPD Stakeout Squad, never missed a shot he fired at a man and told me that except for a single shot, he could have counted the grooves on his front sight for every shot he fired.

Other departments -- LAPD, Fort Worth PD, Anchorage PD -- which have emphasized use of sights in training have been rewarded with high hit ratios in actual gunfights.

While there is certainly a place for point shooting at extremely close range, whoever made the statement you quoted above was way off base, and IMHO that would hold as true for the citizen as the LEO.

Best,
Mas

La26

04-26-2011, 16:20

Thanks Mas,
I appreciate your quick response. In our firearms training we teach and are taught, "front sight-front sight- press (the trigger), front sight front sight- press". It doesn't make any sense for us to train like that and then be told that when you are involved in a deadly force situation to throw your training out the window and don't use your sights. You certainly make it more clear.